[DocJ]

Think about it, there are only 66 MCQs and 8 SIMs. And yet, it potentially covers literally HUNDREDS of different topics. From a pure statistical standpoint, you are not going to see any questions on most topics you studied, or you will see 1 or 2 at most.

So end of day, your passing is going to very heavily depend on which topics you focused most on and which topics you are lucky enough to see on the actual exam.

If you get a passing grade, it’s largely because you got topics you are already strong on or studied more. Meanwhile, if you failed, then you didn’t get the topics you did know.

That is NOT an accurate portrayal of one’s accounting ability. The exam needs serious reforming and is just unacceptable in its current format.

[aaronmo]

It's really not, but if it helps you to believe that, who am I to say otherwise?

[thunderlips]

You will still need to know enough to answer the bulk of the questions correctly no matter the topic. Some luck is involved but very minimal, ~5%

[aaronmo]

I hit an unlucky FAR in that it was the first one I took (I didn't know what to expect), and I went deliberately light on IFRS because I had been told it would not be tested heavily, and because I hate memorization. I ended up with 14 IFRS questions (I counted). I also ended up getting a crap ton of questions about the titles of different financial reports, which I had not practiced at all…I studied the concepts involved, not the names. I had studied my arse off on pensions, LIFO aqdjustments, and diluted EPS, which barely came up…

But…by studying the “hard stuff” as thoroughly as I did, I really understood the concepts and was able to utterly destroy the SIMs.

So yes, there's SOME luck of the draw, but…overall…it's also testing a lot of conceptual accounting, and if you have that piece down, you'll get a lot right, and also make good guesses where you aren't sure.

So – overall – no, it's not luck. It's testing preparation and ability.

I do agree that the test should be different, though as I understand it, it's more how I think it should be now. I'd make it more of a difficult concept test that wasn't as thorough on specific memorization. I'd make it more of an intelligence test, so that it took less time to prepare, but took more ability to pass.

[Kevin]

I agree that if you are right on the border between passing and failing, luck can play a large factor in whether or not you pass. However, if someone who scored a 90+ in FAR took the exam 50 times back-to-back (different question – with no studying in between), they would definitely pass all 50 times. Similarly, someone who scored under a 60 would probably fail all 50 times.

[Lindsey_p87]

I know you said it was an unpopular opinion, but I kind of feel like this is a defeatist attitude to have. Yes, there are a lot of possible topics on the exam, but the fact is that, if you study enough, you will be prepared for any question thrown at you (or at least be able to make a decent educated guess). If you pick and choose what to concentrate on while studying and ignore topics hoping they won't be on the test, you will be setting yourself up to fail. It's easy to glaze over topics that you don't enjoy studying or find difficult, but having big holes in your knowledge for any given exam is just rolling the dice.

FAR - PASSED 11/14
AUD - TBD
BEC - TBD
REG - First take 2/16

[vbmer]

As a previous posters have said, FAR probably has more score variability because of the volume of content, but it's not “pure luck”. We all have our strong and weak areas, and there is some luck involved in what questions you get, but everyone has the chance to make their own luck by going into the exam as prepared as possible and being competent in every area. You can miss quite a few questions and still pass.

[animalwithin]

Honestly, all the sections involve luck.

I lost count of how many times people on here claim that they thought they did horribly, guessed through all of the SIMs and ended up passing. These people are either lying or they got lucky.

[aaronmo]

People aren't sure about how they do because the exam has experimental questions, frequently in areas you haven't prepped, and because you don't know how the questions are weighted, or how those weights may change depending on testing results.

Believing it's luck is magical thinking and/or rationalizing failure. As stated previously…if you got a 73 -77 luck may have played a role.

[bigstakk]

Of course you can get lucky guessing on MCQs but this exam like everyone has stated you have to know enough about every topic they could throw at you. You could get lucky in theory and only get questions and topics you are familiar with but that’s not a recipe for passing this exam. My CFO said something smart to me about FAR even though he took his exam more than a decade ago. He said anytime there are significant rules changes that is what they will test you on. Low and behold my exam was just that. I studied every single topic and felt like I over did it on some of the harder topics like pension fund accounting and DEPS, but to me the exam covered all the stuff it said it would in the AICPA blue print and emphasized some of the new stuff. What I noticed is if you answer an MCQ on a specific topic wrong in the first testlate it will blast you in the second testlate with more of that topic. Either way you can’t rely on luck to pass these exams. You have to remember if you don’t know a topic likely not everyone does and those are harder more heavily weighted questions that give you more credit than a simple question. You probably are also missing a lot of points because you are not reading the instructions carefully -ie positives, negatives, zeroes. You can score a bunch of gimme point just by putting zeroes in on SIMs if you follow the directions. Any way you should spend more time studying and less time justifying your miscalculations on what you thought you should study and focus on all of the subjects you have to know in order to pass.

[Author]

Replies